180 Days to Goodbye
by MusicalCatharsis
Summary: High School AU. Luke tells Penelope something that will forever change their relationship.


There were several things that didn't make sense to her: the weather and why when it rained she was always tired, algebra and what the point of finding the value for _x_ would have in her adult life, and currently the words tumbling from her boyfriend's lips as they lay sprawled out across her bed. Penelope Grace Garcia, was a short girl, who had a penchant for wearing black combat boots to cover the neon colored socks she would slide onto her feet each morning. She kept her hair long, letting it fall around her shoulders in soft curls each day, but dyed a harsh shade of black that she wasn't sure was ever going to wash out. If at any chance her closet were to be inspected, it would be discovered that most of the clothes inside of it were of the darker hued variety. Her eyes were a delicate shade of brown that she took her time each morning to rim with the darkest shade of black liner she could afford. Her lips, usually rimmed in a deep shade of red, were stretched thin across her face, the cupid's bow all but disappearing from view.

She lets out a slow whistle, lifting herself onto her elbows to look at him. He's leaning against her headboard with her feet in his lap. His large hands are tossing a football into the air, watching it spiral before landing back into his waiting palms. It's something he's good at, she surmises, catching something and holding onto it for as long as possible. He had caught her in the beginning of their freshman year, running up to her as she walked to the bus stop and flinging his arm around her shoulder with a cocky grin. He had told her then that she was his girlfriend and she didn't object, she remembers giggling and nodding her head, and they had gone from next door neighbors to dating without thinking about the transition. He had always been an integral part of her life, whenever she needed something she could go to him, and his words had just sliced through that safety net.

"You're enlisting?" He stops tossing the ball instead, placing it beside him and resting his hands on her bare shin. It's nothing new to her, the tingles she gets when he touches her, and the way her heart begins to beat out of rhythm when he looks at her. She blinks slowly, letting the tear that accumulated in her duct slide down the side of her nose, and she was almost sure that she could hear it splash onto her lips. Her chest constricts, a dull ache radiating through her upper body, as she tries to take in a deep breath and finds that she can't. Breathe, that is. Penelope watches as he nods, his thick curls bouncing against his forehead, as she struggles to suck in enough air to actually keep living. She drops back down onto the bed, her arms flying out from underneath her as they weaken, and lets out a strangled sob that she tried so hard to hide from him.

"Penelope." Her full first name rolling off of his tongue had never sounded weird to her before, but she realizes that it's because it may be the last time she ever hears it. Her mind races to all the first things they hadn't done together yet, all the things they planned to do after school let out in June, all the things they couldn't do anymore. She lets her head roll to the side, rapidly blinking away the tears that are clouding her vision to look at the writing on her wall. _Luke and Penny's Road Trip_ had been written in blue chalk, and he had spent days drawing the map of the United States onto her wall, outlining each city they were going to stop in. They had planned to start with Boston, something they were both familiar with and branch out from there. The pink line seemed to disappear before her eyes, a horrifically colored metaphor for the future she had meticulously planned out for the two of them. She forces her legs from his grasp, planting them on the floor and walks to the wall. She's angry, she realizes, as she reaches up with the sleeve of his _Track & Field_ shirt and swipes it quickly across the chalk, smudging their summer plans. One sentence having completely destroyed her.

"We're in the middle of a war, Luke," she whispers, sliding herself down the wall and bringing her knees to her chest. She feels the soft material of her shorts ride up her thighs as she folds her arms around her legs and places her cheek onto her arm, letting her eyes travel out of the window. He never closed his blinds, she realized, not even when they weren't dating but she makes the connection now. How they had been hanging out at her house more often, how he didn't bring the mail in like he used to, how he had been training harder than any other season. She had foolishly thought it was for the college scouts. She had let herself believe that he was preparing himself for an eventual run in the _National Football League_ , and Penelope had thought she could deal with concussions and broken bones. She had looked up the fatalities from football-related injuries, the number turning up that only one person had ever died on the field during a game. _That_ was a statistic that she could deal with, it was one that she could wrap her mind around, but not this. Never this.

"It's my duty to serve my country," he tries to defend himself. Penelope has to give him credit for the amount of passion she can hear as he tells her his reasoning, and even though she knows it's noble, that it's the right thing to do, that he wants to follow in his father's footsteps, she can't help but hate him for it. She finds herself nodding, her cheek rubbing against her knee, more tears slowly leaking from her eyes. She hears him move off of the bed, the springs squeaking as his weight shifted, and before she can wipe at the smeared eyeliner he's wrapping his arms around her shoulders. He's pulled the ball she has formed with her body into his lap, pressing his lips to her forehead. "We still have 180 days." She never wanted a countdown, not with him at least, and the thought of one causes her to let out another strangled sob.

* * *

The first day of their senior year starts earlier than she wanted her best friend, and a royal pain in her ass, Emily Prentiss crawls under the blankets she's wrapped herself in. Penelope feels the smaller woman snuggle closer to her as the cigarette smoke she trailed into the house assaults her nostrils. Prying one eye open to peer at the woman, who's hair is dyed the shame shocking black as her own, Penelope mutters, "I'm not going to school today."

She had started her lie last night, locking herself in her bedroom and wrapping her blankets around her shoulders, and pretending to cough so violently that she thought she would actually vomit. It wasn't that she was actually sick, that even her mother and step father could tell that it was all a ruse, but she was sticking to her lie. Somewhere in her brain was the thought that if she could pause the clock by not starting her senior year at all, then Luke wouldn't join the Army in June after he graduated, their road trip was still planned out, and she would be alone with nothing but the memory of him.

"What do you mean?" Emily asks, lifting her head off of Penelope's pillow and staring at her friend. Her deep purple lipstick is smudged across her lips, and if Penelope wanted to put money on it, she would find the remaining lipstick on Derek Morgan's lips. She closes her eyes and turns her back to her best friend, mumbling out her excuse that she was sick and that they should head to school without her, before devolving back into the tears she had just stopped crying a few short hours ago. "PG, it's our senior year, you have to go."

For all of her faults, Emily Marie-Susan Prentiss, was a very good friend. Penelope could count on her hands how many times the girl had let her down in her life, the number being one. And that number had only gone up in the last thirty seconds when the other woman had let her boyfriend and his obnoxious best friend climb into her bedroom through the window. Brutes, she thinks to herself, as they thump loudly onto the carpet with large grins and their letterman jackets displayed proudly on their shoulders even though it was nearing eighty degrees already this morning. _Good, they can sweat all damn day for all I care._ The thought crosses her mind quickly as she glances at the beads already forming on her boyfriend's forehead. She rolls back over to face her supposed best friend, who was now clutching a cigarette between her lips. Penelope finds herself watching as the smoke curls from the lit end of the stick and disperses the higher up it gets.

"You can all leave, I'm not going." She realizes that she's throwing a hissy fit and that it's not the most becoming look for her, but neither is the fact that she slept in the plaid shirt he had left here months ago, the scent of him still clinging to the threads. Neither is the fact that she's clutching the elephant stuffed animal he won for her at the traveling fair two years ago, and it's also not a good look that she's in a pair of his stolen basketball shorts. The very ones he had been tearing his bedroom apart searching for not even two weeks ago. It would be an understatement to say that she is taking the news of his enlisting well, but she doesn't say anything to him as he crosses her bedroom and kneels near her nightstand. There used to be a picture of the two of them there, but in her frustrated rage last night she had ripped every vestige of him from her view, shoving it all into her closet in the pink backpack she used to carry.

"Babe, I'm sorry," he begins. Penelope watches as his eyes study her face, watching as the sunlight streaming in through half-shuttered red blinds illuminates his face in a way that she's never seen before, and for a moment she's mesmerized. She tries desperately to commit this picture to memory, the small smile playing at the corner of his lips as he stares at her, taking in the tiny stubble he hadn't bothered to shave this morning, smiling at the not yet defined jaw that he was sensitive about but, in fact, drove her crazy. She found herself searching everything to do with enlisting in the Army last night, and knew that in 179 days he would have to shave his head. She also knew that that beautiful curls that she loved to run her hands through on the sandy beaches of Massachusetts were going to be replaced with prickly stubs of hair. The thought causes her to close her eyes and pull the blanket over her head.

"Man, why are you apologizing?" Derek asks, making his presence known finally as he plops onto the bed. Penelope doesn't know how many times she has asked him to keep his ass off of her sanctuary, but her boyfriend's shadow always ignored her, making himself right at home. She kicks out at the end of her bed, growling in frustration when she realizes that her legs aren't quite long enough to make contact with him. She can hear Luke's muffled explanation to the other two in the room, and then silence. It's the same silence they had sat through the previous day, when the sun was setting onto her bare legs and the football he was tossing. It was the same heavy admission that had caused her heart to pause it's beating, that caused her world to stop spinning, that had caused her life to come to a standstill. Nothing but what ifs littering the road in front of her. Hearing the words again doesn't make the truth any easier to swallow, and she finds herself choking on a sob as her eyes fill with tears. They're hot as they trail down her face, the saltiness stinging the cheeks she had rubbed raw in the shower last night. She doesn't know how many mornings she would get like this again, and the ones she imagined where she would wake up in his arms, those have disappeared as well. Luke's hand slides under the covers to grip her own, she watches as his thumb glides across the back of his hand, and the children with the sun kissed skin she imagined having...well, she can't recall their faces anymore. The other patrons of the room continue their bickering; Derek asking Emily out on yet another date that the girl denied, trying to pretend that everything was normal. But Penelope could tell, their voices were thicker than usual, even through the haze of cigarette smoke Emily constantly found herself in. She doesn't know how long they let her cry under the cover of her blankets, but she's happy that they finally understand her world is crashing around her, and she can't figure out how to stop it.

* * *

His car is the same as she remembers it when she finally decides to slide into the passenger seat again a week later, a lengthy conversation with her brother before one of his classes at New York University. He was the youngest of the four brothers, and though she was the baby, he had always treated her like an adult. When she couldn't come to terms with the bombshell that Luke had dropped, Mitch had leveled with her in a way that she wasn't sure was possible. After weeks of going to school, keeping her head down, cheer practice and drama club, she eventually made her way back home. On the first night of school she had completely shut her blinds, taping a note to the window to let him know that she wasn't ready to speak to him just yet. On the second night she could hear him tossing, what she could only assume was pebbles from his fish tank, at her window for over an hour before he gave up. On the third night he had climbed the trellis to her other window, and sat on the roof in the pouring rain begging her to open the window. The fourth night had him using the doorbell, dressed in a button down shirt and dress pants and asking her parent's permission to go to her bedroom and talk to her. Penelope spent that night in Mitch's attic bedroom, curled onto his mattress and trying to avoid making a sound until Luke went home. Night number five found Luke sitting at her table when she came downstairs for dinner. It was then that she realized that she was going to have to deal with this, as she had to listen to him inform her parents that he was enlisting.

The third time she heard the words spill from his mouth were not easier than the first or the second, still stinging her heart just the same, as her fork clattered to her plate loudly. Conversation stalled as she stared at her boyfriend in horror, his chair scraping across the floor at the added piece of information he had detailed to the adults in the room. His eyes connect with hers, panic racing through the brown irises as he realized his mistake, "Crap, I'm sorry Penelope." He stands, trying to round the table as her mother gasps at his language.

"Get out." Never in her life did she think that she would be able to produce the venom in her voice and direct it at him, but it was there.

"I can explain," he had told her, his hands coming out to try and stop her from racing out of the dining room. And though the boy ran for a hobby, she was upstairs and locking herself in her bedroom faster than he could blink. She didn't hear him leave the house, but she could feel him sitting on the other side of her door, his fingers sliding underneath the gap to lay next to hers.

"Derek is going to ask Emily to go to homecoming with him," he tells her, reaching over to grab her hand and pulling her from her thoughts. She turns to him in the car, half smiling at the man before turning her attention back out of the window. "Is she going to say yes to him?"

"Probably not," Penelope replies, peeling her hand from his grasp and scratching at the frayed edge of the rip in her jeans.

"Why?" He questions, and she tries to ignore the hurt she can hear laced in his voice. She tries not to think about what her distance is doing to his heart, but she's not sure how much closer she can get to him, not only for him but for her as well.

"After last year she hasn't been with anyone, she's terrified, and I can't say that I blame her." Penelope takes this time to pick at the chipped purple nail polish on her fingers, digging her thumb nail under the small raised edge and trying to pry more of the paint free. She sighs heavily, before reaching up to pull down the visor and stare at herself in the mirror. Her hair was pulled into a pony tail today, not caring what she looked like anymore, and her eyes weren't lined with as much eyeliner as usual. She's found that she doesn't care what she looks like anymore, not when her heart is determined to race off into active combat.

"She has a right to be scared, but it's just a date," he tries to defend his best friend, but Penelope finds herself growing aggravated. She remembers back to last year, when she found Emily clutching a positive pregnancy test in her bathroom. Emily told her the story of how her and Derek had been drinking at a party and one thing led to another, teenage hormones or whatever else adults called it. Penelope knew it was the untreated and unchecked crush Emily had had on Derek for the better part of their lives.

"What if it were us?" Her voice rings out suddenly, stopping his monologue as he comes to a stop at a red light. His eyes dart over to her face, as he reaches up to readjust the beanie on his head. And once again she eyes the curls that would one day disappear. "What if last year, I was pregnant, and we had a one year old right now, what if it was us? Would you still be enlisting?" He shakes his head, moving his foot to the gas pedal and avoids the questions. "Is that a yes, Luke," she asks.

"Why are you doing this?" His hands slam onto the steering wheel with the shout as he pulls over to the side of the road. "We've never fought like this before, not when Sam tried to break us up. Not when my foot was broken for three months and you had to carry my books around. Not even when my parents thought we had to move back to New York to take care of my grandmother. We always found a way to work through whatever it is." Penelope looks up at her boyfriend, biting her bottom lip to keep the tears at bay, but fails. She was sure that she was out of them, sure that she had cried out all of the water her body had in the last week.

"You're leaving for the Army in June, Luke, I'm just preparing myself." She reaches down into her purse, pulling out a black sharpie and tossing her feet onto the dashboard of his car. Her new converses were still too pristine for her liking, and she attacks the white tip of the shoe with the marker, drawing one half of a jagged heart.

"I'm going to be fine," Luke begins but she cuts him off with a sharp no, the word slicing through the car violently. "Penelope, I'm going to be fine, I promise. I'm going to come home to you."

"Don't make promises you can't keep, Luke." Penelope whispers, her hands coloring in the heart. "I've looked up the Ranger Academy, I know what you're going to be doing. I know it's hard training, but I also know you, and you're going to be one of the best they have ever seen. And I'm happy that you're passionate about something but I hate you, I hate you for leaving me." She lets another tear roll down her cheek as she scribbles their initials under the heart on her shoe. "But I love you, and I can't...I'm so lost."

"I'll always come back to you."

Penelope wishes that she could believe him, he's never lied to her before, but the words sound hollow. It's what her step father calls writing a check she can't cash, and she's never understood the saying before now. She remembers back to her conversation with Mitch, his words coming back to her so clearly as Luke pulls back out into traffic. _Some men are born with a sense to save the world, Penny, and the people they love can't stop them._ She caps the marker and tosses it in his glovebox before reaching out to wrap her hand around his.

"I'm going to hold you to that, because I'm not sure who I am without you, except for the weird girl who dresses in dark clothes and wears too much eyeliner." Penelope tells him, reaching out with her right hand to yank on his beanie. She smiles, the first actual smile in a week, as his curls spring free.

"I like the eyeliner," Luke says with a grin.

 _Some men are born with a sense to save the world, Penny,_ she tells herself as she looks over at her boyfriend. It made sense to her, it actually made her stop and try to understand why her boyfriend was willing to put himself into danger. But she remembers how he jumped into action when Emily needed a distraction in order to go to the clinic the next town over. She remembers how he had witnessed an accident on the highway and commanded that she stay in the car as he raced off to help the people involved. She remembers how he had helped bandage Mitch when the ice skate had sliced open his upper arm. Her boyfriend was always willing to help people, and so maybe enlisting in the Army wasn't as out of character as she had initially thought.

* * *

Penelope isn't entirely sure what's in the drink Luke handed her, but she takes a gulp of the liquid anyway, sputtering when the alcohol burns the back of her throat. He laughs, shrugging his jacket off of his shoulders and sliding it over hers. She smiles up at him, pretending for a moment that everything was okay. When she looks over at Derek he is draping his jacket over Emily's arms and leaning down to place a kiss to her forehead. Penelope lets out a laugh as Emily ducks under his arms, a loud, "Fuck off, Meat Wad." Rolling off of her lips while sliding her arms through the sleeves and burrowing herself deeper into the jacket with a discreet smile at him.

"So about that date," Derek begins, lifting the red cup to his lips and taking a sip.

"No," he plucks the cigarette from her mouth and tosses it to the ground, stepping on it. "Fuck you, Derek, do you know how long it takes me to steal those from my father, asshole."

"I love that mouth, Prentiss," Derek continues, rubbing his hands up and down her arms. "Lets double date with Fire and Ice over there."

"No," Emily replies, reaching into her pocket and extracting another cigarette from the mangled pack she had for the past year. The nasty habit picking up the day after she had made her way back from the clinic. The day she started hating herself. It was hard for Penelope to watch her best friend deteriorate before her very eyes, but the decision to terminate her pregnancy was her own, and as much as Penelope tried to offer her different alternatives, the dark haired woman had one thought on her beautiful mind.

"Are you ever going to let me in?" He asks, sliding his arm around her shoulder and dragging her into his embrace, tightening his grip on her.

"Probably not, it's fun to watch you try." She walks away from the man, sucking on the end of the cigarette and weaving her way through the crowd. Penelope looks over at Derek, watching his face fall as he looks at Emily's retreating form.

"She likes you," Penelope tells the man, lifting the cup to her lips and taking a larger sip. Whatever was in the cup was making her light headed, the weight on her shoulders lifting with each sip. "She's just..." Luke's lips cut off her sentence, and she lets out a little yelp. He nods, wrapping his arm around her waist. She stumbles, her arm dropping to her side and letting the alcohol spill onto her shoes. When he backs off from her, she lifts the cup to her face, her fingers wiping across her lips. "Thank you," Penelope tells the man before holding up her cup and telling her boyfriend that she was going to find something else to fill her cup with. She leans up and presses her lips to his cheek, letting her fingers trail through his hair before walking off, kicking at the cigarette butt left on the ground.

The inside of the house was louder than outside, the music assaulting her ears as she enters the kitchen in search of something else to drink. All around the house Penelope saw her classmates, people she never wanted to be around in the first place, but here she was because she had the misfortune to be dating a member of the football team. It wasn't even that, she thinks as she looks over at her teammates, each of them still dressed in their cheer uniform with bubbly smiles from the win this evening. She falters as she reaches for another cup, filling it to the brim with the punch that was in the bowl in front of her.

"Penelope," Sam shouts as he slides up next to her, sliding his arm around her waist. The girl stiffens as his hands slip under the jacket and slide under her t-shirt. She rolls her shoulder, using her elbow to try and squirm out of his grasp. "I heard Luke is leaving you at the end of the year." She's uncomfortable to say the least, but she decides to remain still, bringing the cup to her lips and taking another sip of the alcohol. Luke's jacket is suddenly heavy on her shoulders, heavier than it had ever been in the years she had been wearing it. And the blissful moment that she had without the weight on her shoulders settles back onto her. Her eyes dart wildly around the room, trying to formulate a plan of escape, but her brain isn't moving as quickly as she's used to. She stares wildly ahead of her as he leans his face closer to hers, and she tries to control the gagging as his breath rolls across her face. She's not supposed to be here, why did she agree to be here?

"Jones, get your fucking hands off of her." Luke's voice booms around them and before she knows it, she's out of Sam's embrace and pulling her shirt back down around her waist. Penelope tips the cup back to her lips and takes another sip, stumbling slightly away from the scuffle that is sure to happen. She whispers out his name, begging him to hear her. She says his name louder this time, tears warbling her voice as she notices he has Sam by the collar his fist clenched at his side. He looks back at her, the anger slipping off of his face as he notices the tears welled in her eyes, and releases Sam's collar. Giving the other boy a shove before growling out: "If I ever hear that you've laid a single finger on her, you'll be sorry."

The car ride home is mostly silent, with her sniffling in the backseat, her head in Emily's lap. She's not sure what ever possessed her to drink, let alone that much, especially when she knew he was going to be there. The teenaged boy had almost tore her and Luke apart the year before, spreading rumors that he had taken her virginity. There were very detailed text messages that described exactly what he had done to her, and by the time she had managed to catch up to Luke, he was livid. Penelope had never seen her boyfriend so angry as he tossed his phone into his locker, racing off down the hall to find the person responsible for the text messages. Penelope chased after him, screaming out his name and trying to call Derek several times in order to stop his friend. Her boyfriend was just as angry tonight and all she wanted was to be in her bed, curled up with her boyfriend watching a movie on her laptop as she drifted off to sleep. When he finally pulled into his driveway, Penelope opened her eyes to stare at the back of his head, never uncurling herself on the backseat.

"I love you," she whispers into the tension, trying her hardest to diffuse his anger. Luke turns around to look at her, his hand jutting out to run down her cheek. He smiles softly at her, the anger leaving his face once again when he looks at her. She lets her heart rate settle back to a normal rhythm for the first time tonight when he climbs into the back of the car with her, lifting her head and settling it onto his lap.

"I love you too," he tells her. She lets her eyes close and evens out her breathing, feeling content for the first time in a while. "When I get back I'm going to marry you."

"You're making promises you can't keep again," she whispers, running her hands up his thigh with a yawn.

"I plan to keep this promise, Penelope." He tells her, running his fingers through the ends of her hair. "I plan on making you my wife one day."

* * *

"Mom wants you to come to dinner tonight," Luke says, sliding into the row of lockers with a wide smile and pulling his beanie lower onto his head.

"Okay." Penelope looks up at him, her hands continuing to put her books away. Looking down the hall she rolls her eyes at the snickering girls who are looking over at them. She glares, raising her middle finger before waving at them. It's not that she never had this happen before, in fact it seemed to be a weekly occurrence since the party a few months ago. "What time?"

"Six," he says, reaching up to tuck a piece of hair behind her ear with a smile. "Is that okay?" Penelope nods, turning her attention back to the man and taking a deep breath. She reaches out to wipe a piece of lint off of his shoulder, letting her fingers trail down his chest.

"Yeah, that's good. I can be there."

"Yo, Luke," Derek shouts, jogging down the hall and waving his hand at them. She smiles as he stops to grab Emily, dragging her forward by her arm. The latter shouting at him to let go of her.

"Must you always act like an idiot?" Emily chastises the man, tugging her arm out of his grasp and pushing against his shoulder.

"You love it," Derek responds while tossing his arm over her shoulder. He smirks down at her, reaching out with his other hand to tap her on the nose. "And I love you."

"Gross, Derek," Emily says, wrapping her arms around his waist and settling her head onto his chest. The two of them having finally gotten over themselves a few months ago and succumbing to their feelings for one another. "But yeah, sure, whatever."

"What did you need man," Luke asks, as Penelope shuts her locker with a little bit more force than necessary. He reaches up to slide his beanie back onto his head.

"Coach said that A&M is asking around about me!" The excitement in his voice gives Penelope pause, a smile trying to spread across her lips for her friend, but she can't help but feel as if her boyfriend should be this excited about colleges looking at him. Instead, he's up at five in the morning, pushing himself to run faster and farther each day. She pushes past the three of them, walking quickly down the hall and slamming the door open in order to begin her walk home. There were angry tears welling in her eyes, and with each stomp of her combat boots into the frozen over snow caused her to want scream out.

"Penelope!" She continues walking, ignoring the calls of Derek as he chased her out of the school. When he caught up to her his hand wraps around her wrist, pulling her to a stop, with a glare. "What's the matter with you?"

"It's not...screw this," Penelope shakes his hand off of her arm and continues her walk home, pulling her coat tighter around her. Derek jogs faster to keep up with her, trying to get the girl to stop.

"Just talk to me, Sunshine."

"Don't fucking call me that," Penelope stops short, the other guy jogging past her before realizing that she was standing still on the sidewalk. "You're getting to live the life I wanted for him! I'm watching you live this life, this amazing life and talking about colleges and...I can't see his future, Derek, I can't see anything for him after June. I had this amazing life planned out for us, and he went and did this. I know I should be happy for him but I'm pissed, I'm so fucking mad because he could die out there and all he can say is that he will be fine." She continues walking, tossing her taller companion a look over her shoulder as she passes him.

"He's telling you what he thinks is right," Derek says. Penelope shakes her head, pulling her backpack higher up onto her shoulder and crossing the street.

"He shouldn't make promises he can't keep, but he does and then he acts like everything is fine. But it's not Derek! He's leaving in six months and every time I look at him all I want to do is kiss him or kill him. I'm not sure," Penelope admits.

"I know it's hard," Derek tells her, running his hand over his head.

"You don't know anything, his eighteenth birthday is tomorrow, Derek. He's signing the papers tomorrow and then it's real!"

"Pen, it's been real since the day he told you, he wouldn't have put you through months of this if it wasn't what he wanted, he talked about it after the attacks three years ago! He's torn up over this too and all he wants is for you to be okay with this! He can't focus on his job come June if he's worried about you, grow up." Derek stops, his hand reaching out to grab her by the wrist, pulling her to a stop.

"Fuck you, Derek."

* * *

Penelope stared across the room at Luke, biting her lip to keep the thoughts from sliding out of her mouth. She had been thinking for a while, trying to figure out the best way to approach the subject of finally sleeping with her boyfriend. It was a step that they both wanted to save until the time was absolutely right for the both of them. She wasn't entirely sure what she was waiting for now, her time running down quicker than she could imagine. They had come close on Christmas, closer than they ever had before, but here they were alone in her house. She tapped her pen against the text book she was reading, before sighing and slamming the book shut. There wasn't much that she had to be embarrassed about, she concluded as she looked over at him. He reaches up to scratch at the back of his head, letting out a frustrated sigh and pushing the papers away from him.

"Luke?" He hums in order to let her know that he is listening. "Can you come lay with me?" Penelope watches him stand from her desk and make his way over to the bed. She tosses the book onto the floor, suddenly conscious of every movement she's making. His sweatshirt was too big on her body, and she begins to wonder why she hadn't put a shirt on before sliding the material over her shoulders. The bed dips as he crawls beside her, leaning his head onto his hand and smiling down at her, his fingers sliding to the skin on her stomach.

"You're beautiful," he whispers. Penelope blushes, ducking her head into his shoulder with a giggle. Since being yelled at by Derek on a street corner she has tried her hardest to come to terms with making the best of the time that they had left together. Her stomach was clenched tightly, trying to talk herself into the next step that she wanted to take with the man. Penelope reaches up and lays her hand on his cheek, letting her hand slide to the back of his head and pull his face closer to hers. She presses her lips to his roughly, ignoring his surprised groan as he moves his body over hers.

"Babe?" He questions her, pulling his lips from hers and looking down at her. She shakes her head, reaching between the two of them to slide her hands into his pants much like she usually does.

"You're leaving in four months, Luke, and we may not ever get another chance..." He pulls away from her, groaning as he climbs off of the bed and walks across the room from her. She watches him, her face flaming red from the sting of the small rejection.

"Not like this," he whispers, pinching his nose between his thumb and his forefinger. Penelope watches him take a deep breath and walk over to his backpack, unzipping the small pocket on the front and reaching in. When he turns back to her he's holding a small box in his hands, and she scrambles to her knees on the bed, her mind traveling back to the promise he made her months ago. Penelope shakes her head and holds up her hands to stop him from speaking. Luke laughs, coming to sit beside her on the bed with a smile. He opens the box, showcasing a small silver band filled with small glittering stones. The band ran through an infinity symbol and was sitting on a piece of blue velvet. "This is for you, Penelope. I made a promise to you a few months ago and I wanted to make it official." He pulls the ring from the box and reaches out for her left hand.

"I have known you for almost our entire lives, and I've loved you for all of them. I know I changed the plan by enlisting. I know it's taken you a long time to come around to the idea because you hate change. I know that you're terrified, and honestly so am I, but I need you to understand that I'm not leaving you because I want to. I'm leaving to do what I think is right. I love you, Penelope Grace Garcia, and when I return to you, I'm going to ask you to be my wife. This ring is just a physical reminder of that promise."

It's silent as she stares at the ring held between his fingers, her eyes darting from the stones to his face and back again. She's not sure what she was supposed to say to the man, instead, nodding her head and flinging herself at him and wrapping her arms around his neck.

"If you don't come back to me, Luke Alvez, I'll never forgive you."

"I'll come back," he whispers, pressing his lips against hers with a wide smile. "I'll come back."

* * *

Penelope doesn't hear the bell ringing as she leans up against her locker with her left hand held in front of her face. It had only been the night before when Luke had slid the ring onto her hand, uttering with it the promise of tomorrows to come. They had spent the rest of the night kissing each other softly and watching movies on her laptop, their left hands intertwined and resting on her stomach. It was, and always will be, one of the happiest moment of her life. Currently the smile that was spread across her face as the stones glittered in the fluorescent lighting was causing her cheeks to ache and her heart to flutter wildly against her ribcage. She startles, bumping her shoulder against the combination lock she used to secure it and drops her hand to her side, when she hears her name being repeated.

"Miss Garcia, I understand that it's your senior year, but do you plan on joining us in class today?" Mr. Pinto stood at the door to his classroom with his hands on his hips and his tie already crooked for ten in the morning. Penelope nods, using her left hand to run through her hair as she picks up her backpack and races into the classroom, settling herself in the only available seat. She groans when she realizes who she is sitting next to and debates wether to discretely pull out her phone and begin texting her boyfriend a few classrooms down. Mr. Pinto draws their attention to the front of the class as he began his lecture and Penelope finds herself uninterested in the class. She had already gained enough credits in order to graduate, and while she could qualify for half days, she wanted to spend as much time with Luke as possible. And that meant staying in school until the final bell and riding home in the passenger seat of his car. Penelope rolls her eyes when the crumbled piece of paper lands on her desk and uses her fingers, she flicks it off of the surface. Another paper lands on her desk shortly after, followed by a third before she opens the note.

 _So I hear Golden Boy proposed_

Penelope looks down at the ring again, a smile spreading across her face no matter who was currently annoying her. It was the first time in a while that she could imagine their wedding day like she used to. Luke was taller now, his hair cut short and the stubble he loved to let grow in was gone, his face as smooth as his skin. He had grown more over the course of his time away, his muscles had become more defined, and in her imagination the feeling of being in his arms had intensified tenfold. Penelope picked up her pen, scribbled a few choice words and tossed it back to the boy who had always tried to tear both her and Luke apart. She could hear his scoff and the scratch of his chair on the tiled floor. When she glances over at him, his arms are crossed over his chest and there is a glare on his face. The girl turns her attention back to Mr. Pinto, pulling her notebook closer to her to begin taking notes.

The next time the bell rings Penelope hears it loud and clear and begins packing her belongings into her backpack, trying to get out of the class with the rest of the people and not be left alone with Sam. She's stopped by a small group of girls that she's not entirely familiar with, each of them taking their turns to pull her hand to their faces and fawn over the ring located on her finger. They laden her with questions about how he had given it to her, how she had responded, when he planned to replace the promise ring with an actual engagement ring. A roar of laughter rings out from the other side of the classroom causing Penelope and the girls to look over at the glaring boy leaning next to the door.

"Boot Camp Luke isn't coming back," Sam tells the group, his eyes roving Penelope's body snd she suddenly feels naked under the layers of clothing she is wearing. She snaps her eyes to the other boy's face, daring him with her eyes to finish his sentence. "...she won't ever get to marry him." Her fears bubble to the surface, the thought of him not making it home from wherever he would be stationed after his training. She stomps over to the other boy, her fist clenched so tightly she's sure that her fingers have lost circulation, and connects it with his cheek.

"Fuck you, Sam," Penelope growls, pulling her hand back and delivering another blow to his shoulder. "Fuck you." She turns, walking out of the classroom and slamming the door behind her so hard that the glass rattles in the pane. Her chest is heaving from the weight of the anger she is feeling, and her hands are trembling as she pulls her right hand to her stomach with her left. She doesn't realize the hot tears until they are trailing down her cheeks, ducking her face she heads for the nearest bathroom, grabbing a paper towel and wiping angrily at the smeared eyeliner. Penelope can't stop the sob that rips from her throat and she lets her knees buckle underneath her and crawls over to the nearest wall and hugs her knees to her chest.

"He's coming back," she whispers into the empty bathroom using her thumb twirling the promise ring around her finger slowly. "He promised."

* * *

"I'm going to sleep with him again." Penelope looks up at her best friend who was curling her hair in the mirror. A deep purple dress clinging to her curves. The dress is backless, made from a jersey material that scoops in the front of her chest with a small train at the bottom. Penelope looks down at her own dress, the deep red material was something that she found at the back of a thrift store several weeks ago. Her mother had told her that the piece was vintage, but the way it dipped lower in the back, creating a v shape and showing off the delicate line of her spine. She was hoping that it would drive Luke to take her virginity, the sight of her exposed back enough to drive him crazy. The sleeves were lace, extending all the way to her wrists, the soft material laying across her skin like a whisper. It wasn't that she was planning for anything to happen, it was just that she had stayed up the past week imagining all the ways that he would take her. She sighs, looking up at herself in the mirror, the black eyeliner held to her eye before letting it clatter back onto the top of the desk.

"Do you have condoms?" Penelope asks her friend, readjusting her promise ring on her finger.

"Yes, do you?" Emily asks, turning her attention to her friend with a wink.

"I don't need them," Penelope admits, ducking her head and blushing as deep as her dress. "Luke and I have decided to continue waiting." Emily laughs, resuming the curling of her hair.

"You two are practically married, are you ever going to let him take your virginity?" Emily questions the other woman. Penelope shakes her head with a soft giggle. She's not entirely sure she can explain to her best friend what had happened a few months ago, when she attempted to have sex with her boyfriend and he basically proposed to her instead. Ever the gentleman, he was always putting her feelings first, especially that first day she met him. When she was riding her bike up and down the walkway without the training wheels. Penelope remembers the sting of the pavement as it scraped her knee, the tears that came afterward as she looked down at the bloody mess, and the little boy who came racing across the yard to kneel beside her. Penelope remembers that the first words she ever said to Luke was, _I want my mommy,_ and the rest was history between them. But still, she wasn't sure that she could let that type of embarrassment, the type that would mean admitting to her best friend that her boyfriend wouldn't take her virginity, settle over her shoulders and set up the tone for the rest of the night. She was determined to make these last weeks count the most.

"Eventually," Penelope answers, applying her lipstick. She traces her lips with the wand, letting the dark red liquid slide across her lips and dry before rubbing them together. She reaches up to clasp the necklace Luke had bought them on their first anniversary, the small diamond that he had saved up to buy hanging gently between her breasts. She remembers how he had mowed lawn after lawn on the blocks for months, shoveling show the previous winter, and raking leaves almost directly after they had gotten together. Penelope remembers the first time he told her loved her was six months into their relationship, when he had finally gotten up the nerve to kiss her for more than a few seconds. She remembers the way his chest heaved when he stepped back from her and the blush that crept into his tanned cheeks as he ducked his head and turned away. Penelope remembers leaning forward and wrapping her arms around him, laying her head between his shoulder blades, and telling him that he shouldn't be embarrassed. That she too felt the same way but that he couldn't see how he affected her. "When he comes back to me," she whispers to her best friend, letting a smile spread across her face and realizing that for the first time she actually believes that he will come back to her in one piece.

"It's good to see you smiling again," Emily tells the other girl, leaning down to press her lips to her best friend's cheek. Penelope chuckles, pushing against Emily's hip in order to get the girl to finish getting ready.

"What's sex like?" She's not sure why she asked the question. Penelope isn't even sure that she wanted the answer but Emily blushes and ducks her head, shielding her face between her dark hair.

"Sex with the person you love is...there's nothing like it, Penelope." She reaches out to pick up the nearest mascara and begins applying it to her already dark lashes. Penelope rolls her eyes at her friend, smiling brighter than before and reaching up to fluff her hair in the mirror.

"So, you love Derek then?" Emily shrugs, pointing at the other girl with the end of the mascara wand, her eyes hardening against her best friend.

"Don't you dare tell him!" She whispers. "His ego is already big enough!"

"Oh, trust me I know." Penelope responds, looking over her shoulder to see Luke and Derek standing in his bedroom window, each of them tapping at non existent watches in a signal to let them know it's time to go. She chuckles before holding up five fingers, letting her boyfriend know that they were almost ready.

He's waiting for her when she comes down the stairs minutes later. She's using her left hand to lift the train of her dress so that she doesn't fall, the bottom of it fluttering out from her mid thighs, the velvet material curving over her backside. She stood in the mirror after her shower this afternoon, holding a pair of panties in her hands her mind deliberating the many scenarios that could play out over the course of the evening. The young woman looks up at herself in the mirror, staring at the tape she was going to have to put on her body and lets the panties drop to the floor, kicking them towards her laundry basket with a glare.

When she reaches the bottom of the stairs he reaches out to help her off of the bottom step, steadying her with a warm hand on the small of her back as he leans down to press a kiss to her lips. She could swear that she can feel his hand trembling against her, but she ignores it, knowing that she was also trembling under his touch. Her body was on edge and had been since they had made out in the back of his car the week before. His hands were everywhere and nowhere at the same time. Penelope always knew that she didn't want her first time to be in the back of a car, but that didn't stop her from wanting him to take her to undiscovered places in the back of his Taurus.

"You look beautiful," he whispers to her. Letting his forehead settle against hers and trailing his hands down the lace sleeve of her left arm, his fingers ghosting slowly over the promise ring she had yet to take off. It had become a part of her in the months since he had slipped it onto her finger in February. The interaction is disrupted when Derek whistles loudly in her home, watching as Emily hiked her purple dress up around her knees and ran down the steps with her heels in her hands.

"I'm not wearing these," Emily announces, tossing the heels at her boyfriend and pulling her package of cigarettes from between her breasts. Penelope looks over at the other girl and rolls her eyes, letting out a chuckle before holding out her wrist and letting Luke slip the corsage over her hand. "You shouldn't wear yours either, why is it that they get to be comfortable in pants all night long and I have to wear this death trap?" She removes a cigarette from the pack and settles it between her lips with a roll of her eyes.

"Let's go, Prentiss," Derek says, tossing his arm around her shoulder and presses a kiss to her cheek with a grin. Penelope stops them, calling out to her mother to see if she wanted to take any photos before they left for the prom. She smiles widely when the short but portly woman comes racing around the corner holding her digital camera in her arms. Emily gives her a dirty look, tossing her cigarette behind her ear and covering it with her hair as she stands near her boyfriend, letting her hand settle onto his waist. Luke reaches his arm around Penelope's waist, letting his fingers trail across the small of her back and the breath catches in her throat as her stomach clenches.

She spends the night held in his arms, wondering how many more nights like this she was ever going to get in her life. She had imagined their wedding night. Penelope had thought for hours on end on the many ways he would twirl her around the dance floor in front of their family and friends, the first dance of the rest of their lives being the beginning of a beautiful life together. She used to be able to see their future so clearly, but it's gone now. She has tried to focus on the here and now, tried to focus on how she could spend as much time as possible with him, before he left her at the beginning of the summer.

When he walks her to the door after their senior prom, her parents have long gone to bed and Penelope invites him in. Unlocking the door and letting it hang open behind her with a smile over her shoulder. He calls her back to the doorway, letting his hand travel down her face with a smile. His thumb trails over her bottom lip, prying her mouth open with a groan.

"I want to follow you upstairs so badly, Penelope." He had been using her full name more since he told her that he was enlisting and she found that she loves the way the syllables roll off of his tongue. "But we may be a cliché in every other way, but not like this." He presses his lips to hers, letting his hands trail from her shoulders to grip her hands. Stepping back he looks down at her with a smile and she blinks rapidly, nodding her head. "Get some sleep, love." He whispers as he turns to walk down her front porch.

* * *

She doesn't drive often, she realizes, as she slides behind the wheel of his car. His bags are packed and in the backseat and when he emerges from the house again he's in his fatigues, which is something she had learned from her extensive research. Her fingers are gripping the steering wheel so tightly that her knuckles have turned white from the force, and she's trying her hardest to not cry. They had spent the night together, talking into early in the morning, his fingers twirling her promise ring on her finger. She had fallen asleep on his chest, tears splashing onto his bare chest as the moonlight filtered in through her open window. The cool night air was blowing into the room, the ceiling fan circulating it around them.

His mother is hugging him on the front step, his face in her hands and her lips pressed firmly onto his forehead. Penelope isn't sure that she should be intruding on such an intimate moment, and so she lowers her eyes to the steering wheel, trying to steady her breathing. Her first stop was dropping him off, and then she and Emily were going to take the road trip that had belonged to them. When he enters the car she immediately lets out a sob, dropping her face into her hands and letting her shoulders shake from the force of the crying she is trying to control. She's not sure that she can do this. Not sure that she can watch him board a bus and drive away from her. Her heart is clenching in her chest again, and she's not sure that she can properly breathe. She continues sobbing into her hands, letting the tears flow freely in front of him. Mitch's words ring back in her head, reminding her that this is something Luke wants to do with his life.

"Penelope, it's going to be okay," Luke tells her, reaching out to peel her hands from her face. He peers at her from under thick eyelashes before leaning down to press his lips to hers. "It's only basic training, I'll see you in ten weeks." Penelope nods her head, reaching up to wipe at her eyes with a watery smile.

"Right, ten weeks." She repeats to herself before turning the car on and pulling away from the curb. Her fingers tapping on the steering wheel and Luke staring out of the window. The silence is clawing at her, itching its way up her spine and trying to get her to say something to him. Say anything to him. But the only words she had were her fears, her frustration, her worries...all things that she didn't deem fair to unleash onto him when his mind was miles away. So she keeps silent, letting her worry course through her veins as she drives him to his future. "And then what?" Luke looks over at her with a grateful smile.

"Then I do whatever is necessary to get myself into the Ranger Academy and make sure that I can keep my promise to you." He tells her, reaching over to grip her hand in his own. Penelope nods her head again, focusing her eyes back onto the road.

"I really wish you would rethink the Rangers, they deploy so often and you never know where you're going until you get there," she whispers, hating herself as the words escape her mouth. She lets out a dark chuckle, immediately apologizing and hoping that she could take the words back as soon as they left her.

"I want you to understand that I'm doing this because of the attacks, babe, not because I read about it in a book, or thought firing a gun would be fun. I want to do this because I feel it's the right thing to do, and I want to make our country safe, for our families, for us, for our future family." He pulls her hand to his lips, kissing the back of it.

"Okay," she whispers, lacing her fingers through his. "But promise me when you do get into the Rangers that you will choose something safe, something like food service or HR." Luke lets out a laugh, turning his attention back out of the window with an eye roll and she knows that he would never regulate himself to a desk. She amends, "something relatively safe."

* * *

July 15, 2004 dawns with heavy cloud coverage and large rain droplets splattering against her window pane. Her fingers clutched her phone in her hands the entire day, waiting for a call that never came. Luke hadn't missed a birthday in all of the years that they had lived next door to one another, and even though she knew that this year would be different, she had hoped that it would be the same. Penelope wanted to wake up to the smell of pancakes wafting up her stairs and the loud laughter of her boyfriend, his best friend, and hers waiting for her downstairs. When she awakens on her eighteenth birthday it's in a motel room outside of Nashville, Tennessee. Her head is burrowed into sheets that don't smell like home, but instead like bleach. Emily is snoring lightly behind her in the bed, and every single cell in Penelope's body is telling her that this isn't okay. This isn't how it's supposed to be.

She's supposed to race down her stairs in a pair of shorts, a pair of socks on her feet, and one of his hoodies pulled over her frame. She's supposed to slide into her kitchen with a wide smile to a chorus of Happy Birthday, and be picked up in his arms with a quick twirl and a kiss to her lips. She's supposed to spend the day with her small circle of friends, lounging on a beach and sipping on stolen alcohol from their parent's liquor cabinets. She's supposed to make out with her boyfriend, wanting to take it too far on the shores of Orleans beach, but instead swimming further out into the tide. She's supposed to make Derek drive, pulling Luke over her body in the backseat, and drive the couple in the front crazy with the series of moans and groans they were bound to produce.

There were several things that she was supposed to be doing, but instead she rolls onto her back and is assaulted with the stench of cigarette smoke and morning breath from her best friend. She laughs at the trail of drool sliding from Emily's mouth and onto the rented pillow. Penelope slides herself out of the bed, pulling her phone from her charger and staring down at the text message she had received hours ago. A Happy Birthday from Derek.

She spends her eighteenth birthday in the car, with the windows down and the music turned up too loud. She takes a drag from Emily's lit cigarette, sputtering out a cough when the smoke assaults her lungs and tosses it out of the window with an apologetic look at her best friend. They eat greasy food at a diner on the side of the road, making sure to order the _World Famous_ pie they boasted about, and singing softly a happy birthday to the girl. She tries to not think about him at all throughout the day, knowing in her heart that he would be in contact with her if he could.

Penelope watches the sunset from the sunroof of the rental car her parents had paid for, her bare feet planted firmly on each seat as she slides her body through the opening and spreads her arms wide and tilts her head up to the sky. She lets the whipping breeze flow through her hair as Emily speeds the car down the narrow highway. It wasn't the birthday that she had planned, but it was a birthday she could live with remembering for the ret of her life.

* * *

Penelope doesn't remember the last time she ran, vowing to never do it again as her legs ached as she raced across the quad. She checked her cell phone again, double checking the time, and cursing herself for letting the time get away from her while she was studying at the library. She had hoped that her roommates would be gone by the time she gets there, but she knows that they would be lounging around in clothes that barely fit their bodies, and tossing their blonde hair around with giggles. She didn't get along with the two dorm mates, their personalities clashing the second she placed her bags down and slid her dark sweatshirt off of her shoulders.

Penelope takes the stairs two at a time, brushing past the idiots clouding the hallway as she slides into her dorm suite and drops her belongings onto her side of the common room. She checks her cell phone again, realizing that she doesn't have enough time to relocate to her bedroom as she pulls her laptop from her backpack and pressed the power button. Her fingers tap anxiously against the keys as the computer cycles through the beginning, her eyes searching for the missing power cord, getting angrier the longer she can't find it. Glancing at her battery life left after typing in the library for hours, she sees the glaring red 20% and curses herself as she digs through the common room one more time.

"Where the fuck is it?" Penelope hisses, tossing her desk apart.

"You looking for this?" She looks up, glaring at the man who had followed her from Massachusetts to California.

"Sam, I am not playing games, give me my charger." Sam had been dating her roommate Ashley for the better half of three years. At first she thought it was a sick joke when he had shown up on the couch when she came home from work one evening. She had done a double take, rolled her eyes and brushed past him, slamming her bedroom door shut with a loud growl. Her laptop began to ring, and she presses the answer button, hoping that the battery would last enough for her to get a conversation in with her boyfriend.

" _Babe?"_ His voice settles around her shoulders as she ignores the man holding her charger. Penelope sinks into the cushions of the couch, a smile settling onto her face and her fingers reaching out to slowly trail down his face, trying to remember the feel of his skin under her fingertips. _"I don't have much time, we're getting ready to roll, but I had to see you."_ Penelope nods her head, looking up at the battery life and seeing it dwindle down some more.

"I love you," she whispers. Letting her eyes roam his face, noticing his facial hair is back, and that he looks tired.

" _I wanted to tell you that I'll be coming home for a bit next month."_ She squeals, clapping her hands together and covering her mouth with them. _"I love you too,"_ and from behind him a _"Alvez, let's roll."_ Luke looks back at her apologetically and she nods.

"Come home to me in one piece, soldier."

" _Always."_ He blows her a kiss before disconnecting the call. Penelope slides her hands up the sides of her laptop and closes it with a sharp snap before turning back to Sam who had settled himself on the other side of the couch from her. She smiles up at the man, for the first time in a long time, a happy feeling settling around her body.

"He's coming home," she whispers.

* * *

 _Four Years Later_

California is a definite change of pace than what Penelope Garcia is used to, and when she enters her home she can't wait to turn on the air conditioning and slide out of her work clothes. Her phone begins ringing as she is toeing her heels off. She tosses her purse onto the counter and curses, pawing through the contents of her bag in order to pull her phone from the depths. Her smile widens when she sees Luke's face appear on her screen and she can't contain her excited squeal when she picks up the phone, pressing it to her ear with more force than was necessary.

"Hey babe," he says, and a calm settles over her. She wasn't aware that she was stressed until he spoke to her. "I'm not going to be able to make it. We have to deploy." Penelope lets out a frustrated sigh, leaning onto her counter and pressing her forehead into the palm of her hand.

"Okay," she whispers, trying hard to not let her disappointment show through her voice. "Where are you going this time?"

"Not sure," he replies. "But the second I'm back I'm coming to see you." She smiles, knowing that he was here with her every chance that he could get.

"Okay," Penelope repeats, clutching the phone between her shoulder and her ear. While walking over to her fridge and pulling a bottle of water from the shelf.

"I left something for you in your closet the last time I was there," he tells her. Penelope uncaps the water, taking a sip and begins walking towards her bedroom. Her interest piqued for the moment, as she didn't recall anything being out of place when she was getting ready for her internship that morning. However adjusting her sleeping schedule to include enough hours of sleep to deal with hyperactive children five days a week, well, she could see how somethings would fall through the cracks. She nudges the door open with her foot, a gasp falling from her lips and she lets her phone drop to the floor. He was kneeling in the middle of her room, in his fatigues, and clearly not showered since the plane ride over from his latest deployment.

"I told you I was going to come back to you." She nods, reaching up to wipe the tears away from under her eyes. "Penelope Grace, will you marry me?"

"Yes." She whispers, sinking to her knees in front of the man and letting him replace the promise ring she still wore each day. She takes his face in her hands, her fingers scratching at his chin through the tangle of facial hair, and pulls his face to hers. She kisses him slowly, her tongue dancing with his as their mouths moved together, as her hands moved to slide his jacket off of his arms. She lets her hands travel down to lift his shirt from the waistband of her pants, her fingertips gliding across the smooth expanse of muscles that had sprouted during basic training seven years ago, and had expanded during his Ranger Academy. Penelope lets out a low whimper as he drags her body closer to his, wrapping her legs around his waist and lowering her to the floor.

"I didn't think it would be like this," Penelope muttered as he drags her skirt up her bare thighs. He leans up, spreading a grin across his face as he lowers his lips to hers.

"Have I shown you lately how much I love you?" Penelope shakes her head, her eyes blinking rapidly at the man. She remembers the boy he used to be. The gangly kid who tossed his arm around her shoulder and told her that she was now his girlfriend. The kid who had slid a promise ring onto her finger on a blistering cold Valentine's Day in 2004. The kid who had written her everyday he was in basic training, letting her know how much he missed her, and that he couldn't wait to be back home with her. This boy, who had moved into the house next door at the age of five, who used to pull on her pigtails but gave her the other half of his sandwich each day, had grown into an extraordinary man and he loved her. "Be quiet and let me love you."


End file.
